You may have noticed the recent hype about global warming, a hot summer, looming devastation from freakish weather and all the same old stuff recycled again. You may also have noticed one of the reasons: Gov. Jerry Brown wants to justify shaking down corporate California, again. Well, not only does Brown get the temperature wrong, he also hypes the threat of extreme weather events. Which is to say he gets that wrong too. So, are we amidst horrific extreme weather events? Normally we’d just say, “not exactly.” In this case, we have to say, ”You’ve gotta be kidding.”...

It's probably no coincidence that Gov. Jerry Brown recently launched a website to scare Californians into embracing his global-warming hype. The state is about to launch a cap-and-trade scheme that potentially will raise billions of dollars for the government, ostensibly to fight global warming. In reality, the money is likely to be diverted to more mundane political uses – like backfilling the huge budget hole perpetuated by Mr. Brown and the Democratic-controlled Legislature...

Brown wants you to believe global warming "poses an immediate and growing threat to California's economy, environment and to public health," and that reducing greenhouse gas emissions, "which are warming the planet," is necessary "to prepare for the unavoidable impacts of climate change, including the increased likelihood of both flooding and drought." That's the same phony scare story repeated until many people finally tuned it out. It failed to persuade Congress to intervene with a law to limit greenhouse gas emissions, even though Congress almost never has seen a trumped-up crisis that didn't justify overreaching intervention... But, as the Sacramento...

Monday more than 825,000 people throughout California will begin receiving bills of $150 or more from the state government, in this case to pay some of the costs of preventing wildfires. . . Opponents, such as we, say it’s a tax and that it’s imposed in violation of the state Constitution. Apparently that argument hasn’t dissuaded the tax man, er, fee man from his appointed rounds. . .

Orange Punch readers know how we feel about most laws passed by politicians. They should be few and legitimate, but instead are too many and tools for rewarding friends and punishing enemies. In short, they should protect rights, not invent new ones. Laws generally seek to take from someone something of value, often not merely cash, and bestow on someone else a benefit, oh say, like health care insurance. We’re pleased to see – but not surprised to see – that the majority of Americans believe there are too many unnecessary laws. ..

“…[W]hat we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more…” So said President Barack Obama. Nothing wrong with that. We agree wholeheartedly. Ask the wealthy if they will pay a little bit more, or even a lot more. Please do. Ask. But government doesn’t ask. It demands. It coerces. It enforces at gunpoint. Taxes, you see, aren’t voluntary...

The state government is in dire straits, we are told. We must pay higher taxes, we are told. The cupboard is bare and they are running out of money, we are told. Then there’s this: “More than $2 billion in California taxpayer money has apparently been stashed in hundreds of special funds unaccounted for by the state Department of Finance, a newspaper reported on Friday..."

The unintended, convoluted and costly consequences of President Barack Obama's signature health care law are about to be realized. Obamacare was rushed through Congress in 2010 despite almost no one knowing what the 2,700-page law provided, apart from a vague promise to make health care more affordable and accessible. This week...

Eleven Southern California business owners met this week with Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, at a Costa Mesa manufacturing plant. On the wall behind Mr. Romney's chair hung a large banner that read, "We did build it!" – with "did" underlined for emphasis. The banner underscored how out of touch President Barack Obama seems with what makes the American economy work. The business owners echoed the ire of those nationwide who do understand what makes the American economy work. Their words Monday in Costa Mesa directly refuted the president's now-infamous campaign utterance of last week: "If you've got...

What happens in the real world when those who are fiscally responsible for managing other people’s money hide it and engage in other deceptions? Yeah, they go to jail or at least get sued and have to pay up. What happens in Sacramento? We have a couple of examples of such shenanigans...

The mainstream media met our level of expectation last week by immediately – and wrongly – identifying the shooter in Aurora, Colo., as a member of the Tea Party. Congratulations to ABC for living down to what we have come to expect of the MSM – bash first, ask questions later. But wasn’t the presumed shooter more right than left? Wasn’t he one of those religious fanatics? After all, his parents attend church...

President Barack Obama, who promised to transform America, told a campaign gathering this week, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that." Whether you take his words at face value or prefer to infer he simply meant government can help businesses by building bridges and roads, the president's speech was troubling. Implicit in the president's message is that private individuals and privately held companies are not sufficient. Big Government is the engine that pulls the train, in his view. . .

Two recent studies have confirmed what the Register's Editorial Board has warned since 2006 – California's Global Warming Solutions Act will have devastating effects on the state's economy, and even be counterproductive in its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was a big red flag when the California Air Resources Board, which enforces the law, estimated in 2010 that it would reduce the state's economic output by 0.2 percent. It should have raised more eyebrows than it did when bureaucrats and regulators tasked with putting the best face on its consequences admitted it will have a negative economic effect...

The latest spin is that when President Barack Obama put his foot in his mouth saying :“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he didn’t really mean it. Yeah, and if you believe that, you probably think he was talking about voluntary charitable donations when he said, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” ...

When Barack Obama put his foot in his mouth the other day, he provided a glimpse into what he really is all about – government. . . . What the president should have said was this: “”If you’ve got a business — you did build that. Somebody in the government just made it more difficult for you to do it.”

Some of the most onerous obligations of the illogically named Affordable Care Act, aka, Obamacare, may yet be defeated. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obamacare's constitutionality by curiously deciding its penalty for not buying health insurance is really a tax, justices also said something that made more sense: States may opt out of the law's costly expansion of Medicaid – the government health insurance system for the poor – without losing existing Medicaid funding, as the law threatened. States can save tens of billions of dollars by not expanding Medicaid coverage (known as Medi-Cal in California) to people who...

We got a phone call this morning from an Orange County businessman who had attended a conference this week in which a university professor lauded the benefits of cap and trade. Obviously, this prof doesn’t work in an industry that will have to directly assume the burden of this added tax, disguised as a fee. But our caller does. Our caller and the prof do share this in common – their cost of living as consumers will go up as California state government ratchets up its taxes through cap and trade auctions, ostensible to rid us of horrid CO2 emissions,...

More to the point, for those who think things are unusually hot this year, particularly this summer, and that somehow is supposed to be proof of disastrous man-made global warming, we beg to differ. Let’s go to a non-weakly source for a more authoritative take. . . .

We have received some emails from readers who think government health care is the solution to what ails the U.S. of A. Well, some people think Elvis is alive too. Any way, despite our best and most courteous efforts, these readers for the most part remain unpersuaded by our reasoned arguments. Maybe this tidbit will nudge them...

What makes this headline even more delicious is that the story is from President Barack Obama’s hometown. No not from Hawaii. Not even Kenyan. It’s from Chicago.\ As the sub-head explains: What Chicago would be like with the contraceptive mandate—and without Catholic Charities...

Last we checked, about half of Americans don’t pay income tax. Is it surprising then that so many Americans want to receive benefits paid for by income taxes? When a benefit is offered at little or no cost to the one receiving it, how many people have the strength of character to turn it down on principle? Yes, we know, some people are flummoxed by the mere raising of “principle” as a basis for turning down something of value provided at little or no cost to them. What principle might that be? Might we suggest independence? As opposed to dependence...

Left-leaning politicians and earth-saving environmental zealots have touted the “new economy” and its new “green jobs” as the solution to what ails us. So, what exactly is a “green job?” As you will see, the Big Government has defined “green jobs” in such a way that nearly everything can be considered a “green job,” which means no matter what happens, the Big Government can claim success. Virtually any new job is essentially a “green job.” Why? Because Big Government says so...

If the high-speed train we call the Moonbeam Express will cost anywhere from $68 billion to $117 billion, we wonder how much this one would cost: “Engineers in the U.S. and elsewhere are working on the technology for trains that could shoot through airless tunnels at speeds up to 4,000 miles per hour, the BBC reports. The transporters, which remain at least a decade away, could eventually cut travel time between New York and Beijing to about two hours,” according to the New York Daily News. Actually, at only a decade away, it’s closer than the one floundering today in...

Democrats say they can replace more than $1 billion in Gov. Jerry Brown’s cuts to programs for the poor. All they have to do is spend some of the state’s reserve and make a few accounting changes. Doesn’t this sound eerily familiar? California state government has taxed and spent itself into successive budget deficits and then covered over the mess by snatching money from one pot to spill into another. This latest fix sounds like more of the same. And what could go wrong? ...

George Bernard Shaw, a Fabian Society socialist, knew the flaw of his own people: “A socialist is somebody who doesn’t have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.” Shaw said, before his death in 1950. Some folks, including this blogger, have accused President Barack Obama, of, shall we say, harboring socialist tendencies...

A Green Bay Wisconsin television reporter asked President Barack Obama why he didn’t help out the unions in the Wisconsin recall. ABC News reported that Obama didn’t visit the state because, the president said, “the truth of the matter is that as President of the United States, I have a lot of responsibilities.” So, what kept the president so busy . . .

he Legislature has less than a work week to approve a “balanced” budget or get their pay docked. Never before has there been such incentive for these folks, who certainly hold their own interests above the interests of anyone else. But in the haggling over what to cut and what to spend, consider this: . . .

The standing argument of the Barack Obama supporters since his entry into national politics has been that the guy is so good, only a bigot could oppose his election. So when (if?) Obama is defeated in November, what will the Obama defenders and loyalists say? “If Barack Obama loses re-election, he can blame bigoted white voters,” James Taranto writes at the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web. But . . .

The problem in speaking without a teleprompter is that sometimes you say what you really believe. As the Heritage Foundation’s Amy Payne puts it “In now-infamous comments on Friday, President Barack Obama informed America that ‘the private sector is doing fine.’ This, of course, was news to the 12.7 million people who are out of work and the millions more who are struggling with the part-time jobs they can find, or have simply given up looking.” The part we liked even more...l

Look for our editorial on Sunday, but until then, a few words about the passing of Ray Bradbury. Mr. Bradbury, who died at 91, was a champion of freedom. Through his fanciful lens, he had more to say about conventional reality than most conventional writers can muster. His imaginative tales revealed a world of new ideas, unbound by conventional limitations. It seems only appropriate that he didn’t drive or own an automobile. He operated in a different sphere, so to speak...

Our recent column on how lousy the U.S. higher education system works included both these elements, but it’s always good to hear them from elsewhere too. The American Enterprise Institute’s Andrew G. Biggs points out that the $65 billion Washington spends annually on “student aid” ought more accurately to be referred to as corporate welfare. First, the money is sophoned off rather than being used to lower student costs. As we reported Sunday. Second, the money provides incentive for colleges to reduce what they spend out of their own accounts for aid to students...

Let us stipulate that the government shouldn’t be making loans to companies in the first place. It’s not a proper role for government, which perhaps more than any other entity on the planet is most incapable of understanding what makes private businesses profitable. That said, how have the two candidates for president differed when they have done what governments shouldn’t be doing in the first place? . . .

We were saddened last night as deadline approached and it seemed as if Proposition 29 was going to pass, adding yet another tax on Californians, even if it would fall directly only on those people who have yet to kick their cigarette habits. But as dutiful journalists on deadline, we were obliged to report the situation as it stood as we sent the paper to the presses. So, the newspaper you received on your porch included our editorial saying that to our dismay, Prop. 29 appeared to be passing. But . . .

Government agencies, who have a vested interest in justifying what they spend, expanding what they do and making a case for more of both, are hardly disinterested parties. Witness the EPA, that political entity dating to the Nixon Administration, which was created much like opening a Pandora’s box. The unforeseen consequences continue to pour forth to degrees not even Rachel Carson could have imagined. One of the short-comings of the mainstream media is that it swallows then regurgitates so much of what the government has to say about itself without bothering to critically examine, or even to seek out other...

To hear the Democrats and presidential re-election candidate Barack Obama tell it, the Republicans and that party’s presidential candidate wage a war on women. What would a war on women look like? . . .

Deposed President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak was considered, rightly or wrongly, to be an American ally. Does the U.S. have any allies left in Egypt? And is Egypt a sign of things to come? We’re finishing up a book by David P. Goldman, “How Civilizations Die.” We recommend it. It dovetails with our recent column by Mark Steyn, in which he bluntly explained what has been left in the wake of the “democratic” Facebook-driven uprising in Egypt that tossed our presumed ally. . .

If it’s not the global warming schemers deserting the cause, and global warming profiteers going belly up, and real life contradicting the premise, it’s another bulletin of bad news. Where will it all end for the global warming worshippers? Here’s the latest, which just happens to devastate another assumption of the warming theorists (emphasis ours): . . .

This is our favorite news item this week, hands down. The Europeans, so enamored by things green that they have implemented subsidies, mandates and regulations that have nearly strangled their economy, have found a way out of their dilemma. “Energy from gas power stations has been rebranded as a green, low-carbon source of power by a €80bn European Union programme, in a triumph of the deep-pocketed fossil fuel industry lobby over renewable forms of power,” reports the Guardian in Great Britain. There you have it. To make the green quota, simply reclassify a fossil fuel as green enough. Voila! ....

In what a prudent observer would think is the least they should do, the pay for Gov. Jerry Brown, legislators and statewide officeholders will be reduced 5 percent, thanks to the state’s independent salary-setting commission. . . Had the people of California to do it over again, they may want to give themselves the power to raise and lower officials’ pay. Voting on Facebook by registered voters seems to us an effective tool for whipping these folks into shape in a timely manner. Bad acts in Sacramento could be cause for pay cuts instantly. That would be some motivation. ....

Many NIMBYs weren’t bothered by the idea that the City of Irvine would siphon off millions of dollars in property tax to develop the ostentatiously named Great Park on the closed El Toro Marine base, turning the expanse into a place to romp and play for those who live around it. We wonder how they feel now that the park is destined to be not so great, thanks to a ruling by state officials that $1.4 billion (with a B) in property funds can’t be spent on the boondoggle, also known as the Balloon-doggle, after its signature floating orange balloon....

Remember the Credibility Gap? It was a phenomenon that rose to public awareness in the late 1960s (and even inspired a funny comedy group) when reporting showed a great difference between what government claimed and reality. It lives. According to Bloomberg: “As California Governor Jerry Brown seeks a temporary 5 percent pay cut from public employees to fill the largest state deficit in the U.S., many of those same workers are poised for raises next year . . .

The global warming alarmism that has pretty much faded from public concern always has been transparently fraudulent for those who care to look closely. And now as the world’s nations desire to carve up the carbon footprint profit, you have to love the arguments. “BONN, Germany — Another round of U.N. climate talks closed without resolving how to share the burden of curbing man-made global warming, mainly because countries don’t agree on who is rich and who is poor,” reports the Associated Press. For those who haven’t been keeping score...

More than 40 Catholic individuals, dioceses and universities have sued the Obama administration to prevent trampling of their First Amendment right to practice religion by forcing them to pay for abortifacients, sterilizations, contraception, devices and pills that would violate their religious beliefs. We would be stunned and alarmed if the courts reject their arguments, grounded as they are in the constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion...

California government may receive a windfall from huge capital-gains taxes on the sale of Facebook stock following the Palo Alto social-networking behemoth's recent initial public offering. Or not. Some were disappointed that the stock opened at $38 only to drop within a few days to $31. A worst-case scenario for Gov. Jerry Brown and his Democratic Party colleagues desperate to shore up the state budget would be if resales of Facebook stock kept declining in value, not only eliminating capital gains, but providing tax deductions for selling shares at less than their purchase price...

. . . We have devised a foolproof means of guaranteeing that tax increases will be approved on the ballot. Here’s how . . . Only allow people to vote who are willing to pay the tax, and of course they must vote “Yes.” In other words, a new tax or a higher tax can be approved, but only if those voting Yes are the only ones to pay it. If you want higher taxes, you can vote Yes and pay the higher taxes. . .

We don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but there may be some good news in the most current poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, that left-leaning outfit that insists it isn’t left-leaning. “For the first time in a major California poll since Brown took office, a plurality of likely voters disapproves of the job he is doing,” according to the poll released Wednesday. “The margin is pencil-thin – 43 percent disapprove while 42 percent approve – but follows more than a year of relatively favorable marks for the Democratic governor.” Isn’t it encouraging. . .

What would happen if government operated the way successful businesses do? An entrepreneurial business realizes that disappointing customers will disappoint the bottom line as well. Create enough disappointed customers and the business fails. That’s why smart businesses don’t build disappointment into what they promise customers. They under-promise and over-deliver...